Extreme measures to get WFH-ers back to site?

[skyroofwindow]

Background: Doing an office based job in large department in multinational company. People you interact with are often on other sites and in different countries. When lockdown started the entire department was told to WFH and not come onto site to avoid bringing Covid in and jeopardising operations. Productivity maintained across the department during pandemic and in the time after as people adapted to WFH. Company now wants people back on site, which is not unusual across the corporate world. But there is huge reluctance at this Company/site - especially as now there are not enough desks so if you don't book one a month in advance you end up sitting in the canteen!

Company is now taking a harder line getting people back on site and there are two facts I'm not happy with:
*Whether you receive a bonus this year will depend on whether you are meeting their target for numbers of days on site
*There is a public spreadsheet showing everyone's attendance rate, which includes people I know who have particular circumstances (eg health related) impacting their ability to work onsite

While it is entirely in the Company's rights to try and enforce/encourage people back to the office, the bonus and the spreadsheet make me deeply uncomfortable. But I'm not having much success identifying a specific reason other than it's creating a hostile environment, and staff morale is through the floor. Do I have anything specific I can take to HR? They are aware and seem ok with it so far.

The 2 workplaces I know where they did this is because they were downsizing and, instead of paying redundancies and all that, people self-selected to leave. Depends on the industry, but the job market is getting tougher.

I WFH a lot and i don't "look after my kids" (they have left home, but I've never done that). I do put a wash on sometimes while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil for tea - in the office i yak with whoever is in the kitchen with me while i do that.

And millions of other people manage to work perfectly effectively at home, people who are slackers are slackers wherever they are IME

It is incumbent on an employer to provide a workstation for an employee that conforms with health & safety and other legal regulations regarding workspaces. I'd also question a public list of who is in the office on which days. We have an app for booking a desk, we can only see which colleagues are also in the office if we are "buddies" on the app - we both have to agree to that. For GDPR reasons (but I'm not in UK so that may vary)

Thanks for this. It made me chuckle.

When my DCs were small i dropped them at school at 7:30 (not UK, that's when it opened) drove 45 minutes to work, worked through my lunch break and left at 5:45 (should be 8 hour day) and collected my DCs from my (hugely expensive) childminder. If i could have worked from home I would have still needed a childminder (school until 2pm) but could have collected the DCs at 4 and saved a shit load of money, and when they got to secondary age, they were coming home on the bus and i wouldn't have needed a childminder for the few years until they could be left alone.

And at no time would i have been trying to work and look after DCs at the same time, and I'd have been 800 Euros a month better off.

I know quite a few companies who have bought in the rule that you loose a portion of your bonus if you don’t attend the office enough.

i also know where managers will loose their bonus if their staff members aren’t in the office enough.

it is a result of people paying no attention when they have been asked nicely.

This company sounds rather petty and inefficient.

The first thing they should have done before requesting that people travel back to the office is to make sure they could accommodate everyone and had enough desk space...

The fact that they are putting in blanket policy rather than looking at the benefits of flexible working and trying to 'shame' people makes them look rather silly and dinosaur-like.

As for the bonus policy, I hope they have considered that some people will still require home working as a reasonable adjustment. It would be unlawful for example to financially penalise someone with a disability or long term condition who has an established working from home pattern.

Frankly I would not want to work for that type of organisation and I think bosses are going to find that quite a few of their employees will start looking for alternative roles.

These measures are completely standard in my industry.

If people with health conditions were working from home before covid, thats one thing

If they werent, then it would be expected that they come in surely

However the desk situations needs to be sorted out.

@soupfiend

''If people with health conditions were working from home before covid, thats one thing. If they werent, then it would be expected that they come in surely''

This should be looked at based on individual needs. If someone has a long term disability or health condition they have the right to ask for reasonable adjustments.

Before or after Covid has nothing to do with it...

Similar situation where we work

They want people in, but they're not really sure why (I suspect real estate moguls have something to do with it)

Thats what Im saying!

If they were working at home for that reason thats something different

But if there is no need for adjustments which include WFH then its not relevant.

And of course someone can develop that need at any time

They can't have it both ways - saving loads of money on estates and utilities by shrinking available office space & then demanding employees work from the office without enough desks. It's shambolic.

It's fair enough to want people in say 3 days a week but the desk situation should be flexible enough that a team can all come in on the same day and sit together - if they want the benefits of team working they have to provide a suitable environment.

Sounds like quite a backwards company.

So were you mostly office based pre Covid OP? What does your contract say, if your place of work is the office then your employer can ask you to come in everyday.

yes, @SilverGlitterBaubles contract is that the usual place of work is the Company site. I’m not disputing that the Company has the right to enforce the contract and “encourage” return. I don’t like the way they’re going about it though with shifting goalposts re the bonus and the public record of attendance. It’s also easy to “fiddle”. Eg attendance is noted by which laptops log into the company network on site. So it is entirely possible for someone to come on to site, open up their laptop, log in, decide there’s nowhere to sit and go home again and then spend all day WFH but be recorded as having attended site that day. Not possible for those with a long commute, rely on public transport or car share but easy for anyone who lives close by.

Union. If your workplace is unionised. I'd be looking for a new job, what BS.

You dont like the way they are going about it,,, but is this the only and first time they have raised the issue of people coming in, or have they been requesting this for a while and no one is doing it?

Did they add the extra qualifier after 2023 started? If they only added it midway the year or even this year, that is highly unfair.

The canteen situation is ridiculous. I'd ask occupational health about display screen equipment requirements. Then ask them to remind HR when it turns out they don't meet the requirements. I think you can ask for a workplace assessment, too. Take it to the Health & Safety Executive if you get nowhere. Here is their booklet with guidance on the law and employers' obligations: https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg36.htm

Btw please name and shame so we all can avoid this shit company. Public shaming is medieval.

Edit: contact your union or unionise yourselves asap.

My company have said the same re bonus is going to be dependent on coming in… but also got rid of a whole load of office space so not enough desks / screens for everyone so you end up having to work off a laptop hunched over at a table.

Didn’t get a payrise this year and the ‘bonus’ barley covers a few months of travel costs - so unfair to be spending all that money on travel to then have a worse working environment than at home !!

Requesting for a couple of years. Started at one day a week, was two last year and now three. Varying levels of compliance, some don’t like wfh and are happy to be back full time already. This is one of those situations where the Company are introducing blanket rules instead of managing those people who are not making a sincere effort and not even managing last years two day target.

Initially it was a bit bonkers because they wanted us to choose days when we could come in for meetings to increase collaboration, but we were still social distancing and the meeting room capacity was reduced so only a couple of people were allowed in even the big meeting rooms at once. So people ended up in Teams meetings from their hot desks with people on desks a couple of rows over. No different than if we’d been at home dialling in! So people thought what’s the point, and combined with the desk capacity and similar issues with parking many people have dug their heels in and said they can do a more efficient job at home.

We have a similar problem, not enough space and only one person in the company wants everyone in the office. Unfortunately that’s the CEO. No one pays attention, at least in our office. There have been rumours he’ll back down soon. They’ve lost an unreasonable number of staff due to the policy, especially women. Reason they want everyone in is for ‘collaboration’ and ‘quality issues’. 🤷🏽‍♀️ it’s far less stressful for me not to have to battle traffic, and rush around picking up from ASC clubs, then getting to activities, and fitting in appointments. As an example I had SEVEN medical appts last week, 3 for the Dc and 4 for me. Not every week is like that, but at least once/twice a week I’ll have an appt of some sort.

Did they add the extra qualifier after 2023 started? If they only added it midway the year or even this year, that is highly unfair

yes, and yes it is.

Btw please name and shame so we all can avoid this shit company.

haha, no chance, that would be a definite infringement of the social media policy and a summons to HR!. It seems that other companies also have similar issues which is both reassuring and depressing.

How dare someone who's actually paying you to work insist you have to go to work ay!!

Interesting, it doesn't record when they log out

This sounds like either

A) typical "Chiefs of everything" stupidity - do they have offices they would loan out?

Or B) as pp said, a way to get people to leave

I do think you have a privacy argument with the spreadsheet and an efficiency argument with the lack of desks, and proven data on efficiency of those working from home.

Everyone turning up on the same day is a good idea.

HR will be acting on the instructions of the Chiefs of Everything orders. So ideally pick a day the Chiefs are there.

I'd almost rather it was a sneaky way to avoid redundancies because if it's pure stupidity...if they have seen that people work better at home or with flexi and still want to do this, the dumbass factor makes me want to tear my hair out!

But how can people do it when there's not enough desks?

Surely they need to give notice before they change the bonus criteria - I cannot imagine it is legal to change them retroactively!
A brief google gives me these solicitors with some guidance on bonuses - it says employers have to communicate within the bonus documentation what it will be based on. Can you seek legal advice as a group?
https://landaulaw.co.uk/bonuses/
"Various decisions by the courts in recent years have determined that an employer must exercise its discretion in good faith and on reasonable grounds. It follows therefore that if an employee satisfies the bonus criteria, the employer in turn, must have reasonable grounds for not paying that bonus if it is to show that it has acted in good faith. [...] An employer may similarly find it difficult to establish reasonable grounds if these have not been communicated to staff beforehand, for example within the bonus documentation. Your employer’s failure here could give rise to a legal claim.